#149 A strange disaster between Gwakji and Hyeopjae Beach

Transcript

Okay, it's a couple days later. It's a nice lazy Sunday. Pretty overcast. It was raining a bit earlier, not right now, but it's good because it's keeping the old temperature down. That's not a bad thing. So I was heading back to the salt flats where I ended off last episode. And I noticed just a few bus stops before where I was going to get off is a mountain, a little mountain called Susanbong, like Susan.

Behind Susanbong appeared to be a lake, and the bus stops right next to this mountain. So I was like, well, fuck it, dude, I'm right here. Let's check it out. So I got off the bus, and there's like a highway. And it wasn't immediately obvious how to approach this mountain if I could at all. But I crossed the street, and then I saw my old friend, the Olle Trail markers. So it's like awesome. Even though I only really used them when they're by the coast, and I don't use these inland routes very often, it's still pretty goddamn handy. Technically, I'm following the blue arrow now. I'm technically going backwards, but you know, that's fine because this is just a little Susanbong divergence.

But yeah, because I had to kind of walk down like a little pathway or like a narrow little road with some sort of cobblestone looking walls, like all creatures, great and small.

It's nice to see those markers, and just to be sure you're not just walking into somebody's property, you know, really handy.

I do have a feeling that this this Olle Trail thing, man, a lot of places I go after this, I'm going to be like, man, I miss having those markers everywhere, you know, what a cool thing. And I mean, this had to have been no small undertaking. I mean, I've been doing this for weeks. This is a serious fucking trail, and they are pretty much on top of it. I mean, I've lost the trail here and there. It's not like everything is like completely perfect the whole way, but it's like 99%. You know, totally all set up.

Anyway, why am I starting a podcast by going uphill? Always a bad idea. I just wanted to because the sign at the bottom. It was kind of funny because it's got like, hey, be careful of snakes and be aware of, you know, that there's ticks and stuff. But then it had next to the silhouette of a snake, it had a silhouette of a high heel. And it's like, well, I know what that means, but let me Google translate it just to be sure. And yeah, it was a don't wear high heels, which is just funny because like, I don't know, I guess it's like the body con movement. That is one of those things that just based on Korean pop culture. I was kind of curious, like, how's that going to be when I get there? Is it going to be like ladies walking the streets of Seoul and superhero outfit style, you know, form fitting super dresses, but not barely ever. But there is, I guess, just enough of that culture, enough of that, you know, super beauty culture that they do need to have like, hey, if you got your high heels on, don't do this. Like, I can't imagine seeing that sign in North America, who the fuck is wearing high heels at all. And like, there's just zero chance that they'd end up on some, you know, hiking trail or at some mountain with high heels. But in Korea, they're like, yeah, let's just make sure. Let's just reinforce the notion that don't, don't dress that way. That isn't going to work.

Hey, and I suppose it's not necessarily just for the ladies. I suppose if you're a dude with high heels, also don't do this.

But I get the feeling in this case. It's a fairly gendered advice. But all right, I'm going to go up this fucking mountain to see if I can't see a little lake on the other side.

Yeah, we, wow, we, that is ridiculous. I can't see a single thing.

But I guess those are frogs, maybe. I mean, I honestly don't know what makes noises in nature. But that's like, you know, that sounds like when I've blocked past like a swampy lake at night.

But it's like 4pm right now. That is wildly loud.

Maybe they heard me talking because they sure did stop. Wow. Anyway, I'm approaching the summit here. I just wanted to catch that. But I guess while I get the recorder on, little wee hotel updates. So now that I'm in a new room in the hotel, the other room had a bidet toilet, which those are quite rare in South Korea.

They're definitely not common like they are in Japan. But it didn't work. It just didn't have any power going to it seemingly. But that didn't bother me because, you know, there's still like the wet room philosophy. The shower room is just like one big room. And having a plugged in toilet in there, I don't know. It just seems weird. There's like a little plastic casing that goes over the outlet and stuff. But it's an uncomfortable idea to me to have a plugged in big giant appliance right next to your shower.

There's like a seems like an observation tower type of thing here on the summit, but it's got a fence around it. You can't go up it. That's kind of too bad. That'd be kind of cool because I'm at the top. But just to get a little higher, just to get above the trees would be nice. But all right, hidden down the other side. But yeah, in this new room, the toilet it did power on. But the light just flashed. One of the buttons just flashed and I couldn't get it to do anything.

But ultimately, instead of trying to figure out how it works, I just unplugged it because yeah, like surely, surely to fuck they know what they're doing. Surely this is all mega insulated. And there's no way the water is going to come into contact with power with electricity. But I still, the first couple of showers I took, I just couldn't stop thinking about it. So I don't know. Call it OCD or whatever. I'm sure it doesn't matter. But I was just like, I would just feel better. I could just take a shower without my mind wandering to my electrocution death if I just unplugged this fucking toilet. So still no bidet for me, but that's all right. Yeah, just weird because oftentimes in Japan, it's like two separate rooms in those cases. Like in Fukuoka, I had both situations. I had one bathroom where everything was all together, where the toilet and the shower was all one wet room situation. And it did not have an electric toilet.

Then the next department that did have the fancy pants toilet, it was in its own separate room and the shower room just had the shower. Yeah, it's just not that way in South Korea. Like it wasn't quite the same situation, but in Jetshon, in that shower room, that one was like a really quite a big wet room, big shower room. But I still had to plug in a plug every time I used it because that's what made the hot water work. And the plug wasn't outside. The plug was in that room. So you're just in your little shower flip flops on like a damp floor, plugging a plug into an outlet. I really didn't like it. That felt so uncomfortable. I don't know, man.

I would just rather err on the side of not presuming everybody's got it figured out because I don't know, man. I've also had, I've never had so many sparks fly out of outlets and just, or just even walking past, I've seen that, walking past like a place where people are working on stuff and like there's just sparks shooting out of an outlet or out of a light fixture or something. I don't know, electricity, the relationship with electricity seems a little wild and loose here. It's definitely not where you want. I don't know electricity. Again, I'm sure it's fine. I'm sure it's fine. It's a whole hotel. Every room is set up this way. Probably every hotel on Jeju Island is set up that way. Maybe every hotel in all of South Korea. Nobody's getting fucking electrocuted. But I don't like it. It feels weird. So I just unplugged it.

And then the other thing that it sucks is I was hoping maybe there was just something wrong with the screen in my room that was letting mosquitoes into my room. But same thing in this new room that they set me up in. I still don't know how they're getting in. It's totally mysterious. I was just going to be like, fuck it. I'm just keeping the window closed from now on. I'm just not going to have it open ever. 10:00 Because I just hate just having a mosquito let alone two or three or four in your hotel room. It's brutal. It's so frustrating. Just getting bit all the time and not realizing how or where and then they just managed to go hide away somewhere and you definitely can't really properly sleep. Oh, the worst.

But again, because of just wet room type stuff, like the place I was at in Busan was having a real problem with the humidity. Because that place had no windows. So I couldn't really get the humidity out of the room. And it was always fighting the musty smell. That hasn't been a problem here because I got a window. And I noticed today after I took a shower, I just went into the hallway to the little water machine to refill some water bottles. And when I came back into my room, you could just feel that humidity and that hotness and heavy wetness. And it's like, dude, I can't leave. You know, if I leave the room like this, like when I come back home tonight, it's going to be all musty or it's going to get that way. I got to have the window open. As long as the windows open, it's fine. Then this humidity, the moisture from the bathroom has somewhere to go. It'll diffuse out into the world. But instead of opening the window wide up, I just opened it a bit. Just a little. So I don't know. I guess we'll see. But it has the only thing.

That has been a problem with staying at this hotel. The only significant issue is I just don't know what's going on. Like the bug screen seems so good. It seems so secure. It seems so total. And somehow mosquitoes are getting in. I don't know how. I mean, there's like the tiniest little holes at the bottom of the window frame, like a little, you know, place where maybe a bolt used to be and now it's missing. I mean, man, for a mosquito to get through that, I guess they're doing it though.

Alright, so I made it to a little lake back here. Not a bad little lake, kind of nice. And I passed some people on the way and there's like some swings. A dad playing with his kids. This seems semi-popular. But the lake itself, not much going on here. Quite a small little lake, but kind of cool. Very nice view of Halasan. Even though it's kind of overcast today, I can still see it pretty well. I was saying that Halasan was two thirds of a Fuji, but I think I had the height wrong, right? Because Halasan is like 2,000 meters, but Fuji is 3,700. It's not 3,000. It's almost 4,000. So it's half a Fuji, you know. Fuji, man, that shit must be crazy. Alright, there we go. Little divergence. Went up a little mountain, saw a lake. Now time to get back, back on the proper trail. I don't think I'm far enough away to take a bus. I think I'll just walk from here.

All right, it looks like I got a stretch ahead of me where there's not that much space between the shoreline and the road. Unfortunate, but I am on a spot right now where there's a nice little stairway down to the bottom of the cliff. I can walk along it for a bit. Yeah, I think for most of today, I will unfortunately just kind of be near traffic. But judging by whatever I can glean from Google Maps, it does seem like the main road with the buses and stuff does trend away from the shore later on. But not for now. Yeah, I did the classic. It's become my quick super favorite. The Biyak coffee that comes in one of the little plastic cups, buy some popsicles, drink the coffee, and then put the popsicles in the cup. So if they melt and they drip, it don't matter. And then you can keep the sticks and the wrappers and stuff in the cup. All nicely contained in the pocket, ready for disposal in the future. Very nice. I got the plum popsicles, but actually I didn't realize there's not just plum popsicles because it was a buy one, get one free. So I grabbed two. One of them was plum and one of them was strawberry. I like the plum ones better, but the strawberry one I am not complaining. Still pretty fucking good. And I learned my lesson from last time about where the hat, always where the big flupy hat. You know, it's undeniably uncool. If I accidentally catch a glimpse at myself 15:00 as I'm walking past a window, I'm like, oh, I'm an old man, goober. But I mean, I already was plus nobody cares. It's just so funny that it's so hard to shake that thought. It's like I'm a fucking little kid again. Like, oh, people are going to make fun of my winter hat. I don't want the cool kids to see me in my hat. Fucking so stupid. I'll probably never shake that shit. But the utility of this hat is so awesome that it far outweighs looking like a big nerd. Because yeah, just having the big wide brim, just knowing my little ears are safe and that it blocks the sun more. So I can actually see because that's the other thing, the other lesson I learned last time that came true today is no matter how overcast it is and how much it's raining. That don't mean it's going to last. The sun came out. Everything was brutal for a while, but now it's retreated behind some clouds again. So I was glad I had the hat, but not only that because it was so overcast this morning and all day yesterday. I had the brief thought like, yeah, do I really need to put on suntan lotion? And then luckily, the other voice in my head immediately was like, fuck you moron. That is what an idiot says. Not only an idiot, but an unteachable idiot who doesn't learn from his experiences. What the fuck? Like even if the sun doesn't come out, you know fucking good and well. You're still getting pelted by shit through the haze. And then if the sun does come out, you're just going to get burned to a crisp. So yeah, luckily that voice completely overruled the first lazy voice. And I put on suntan lotion. But yeah, this hat man, it's so good. Got my big brimmed hat. It's protecting my ears to some degree, it's protecting my nose. But mainly it's the ears because my ears were really, they were starting to take a beaten from the sun. And then yeah, I can see better. I can pull the brimmed down over my eyes a lot more. And it's got this handy, dandy little string around my neck. So when it's windy, it's like, aha, you can't stop me. I'm fucking patting can bear in this shit. I'm invincible. And now I'm recombining with the road. So there we go, the little off-road update. Roadwalking ain't bad when you got, you know, just got some headphones in. Being mindful of not being struck, but, you know, just having other things to focus on the car noise. That's so bad. And the view of the shoreline is still fucking beautiful. There's more windmills coming up. Get a hold windmills. Yeah, just, man, I think it was a Walter's world video. And it's one of those things where, you know, he was giving tips about various places and said that he read somewhere that the number two statistic for injuries while traveling is people getting hit by cars. Oh, yeah, that's right, because he was talking about like people who, to get a good picture of the octet triumphant, like go out into the roundabout and just act like fucking morons. So yeah, that's a good thing to keep in mind. The classic getting hit by a car is one of the biggest issues, but it's weird when somebody says that. Oh, the number two, I feel like that's a great time to just toss in, by the way, the number one is, because like, what's the number one? I don't know. But yeah, today's a journey is to just walk along the coast and endeavor not to get hit by a car.

All right, I made it past the part where there was just a lot of street walking. All right, I made it past the part where there was, you know, just walking along the edge of the street. And I got to the A wall coastal walk, AEWOL. And I was like, yeah, this is nice taking me down by the water, but it really was pretty, you know, just rugged coastline stuff and the sun is kind of on its way down. So I was like, hmm, is this going to be, hopefully this doesn't, you know, maybe I'll get what I wished, but too much, you know, like maybe this is going to fling me off somewhere away from buses. But no worries there. It actually turned into super duper touristville, real fast, where it was like a boardwalk by the water and a bunch of like crab restaurants and stuff playing just the worst, the worst music. Because not only is it sort of just like generic, dancing, whatever, whatever kind of crap they would just play on a boardwalk, but it wasn't even like Korean. I mean, it probably was, but, 20:00 you know, they're just singing in English about like, I love you, baby, I'm here to love you love. We're going to love you, baby. Just like fucking Christ. Yikes. It's one thing to walk by. Imagine having to sit at this restaurant and listen to this. Listen to this shit.

Fact. But now I met Gwakji Beach, GWAKJI Beach. And a beach is always a good place to take a break to start again on the next day. Yeah, it's like 7.30, suns on its way down. It's a Sunday. I don't know if the bus is running any different on Sunday, but let's not find out. So, GWAKJI Beach, but I'm going to obviously continue with this episode because I haven't really done much. Just walking. Just a bit of a non-descript walk, but everything's back to beautyville now. Everything is awesome again. So let's do a little fade out and fade back in on a different day, but earlier in the day at GWAKJI Beach.

All right, a little in between day off of traveling, but I just wanted to hop in because first off, I guess I mentioned the other day that I walked by a far restaurant, you know, Vietnamese beef noodle soup. And I mentioned like, oh yeah, geez, didn't really think about that. I don't really see those around a lot, but since saying that, I thought. I don't know, some dudes chasing each other around playfully on this playground, but I didn't know they were down there. That gave me a start. But yeah, since saying that I haven't seen that much beef noodle soup around, I've been keeping my eyes peeled a little more and I've realized there's actually quite a few, even just here in Seguapo. So probably, probably I've been walking by them the whole time I've been in South Korea. It's just that the restaurant I saw the other day is the first time one of them had the English letters, you know, the faux PHO, which caused my dumb little brain to go like, oh, I know what that is. But yeah, it's just that the other Vietnamese style noodle soup restaurants just don't have English lettering so far that I've spotted. So yeah, you know, just thought I'd mention that. So the other thing I got about a month left here on Jeju and then my South Korea visa is finally up. So I found a nice cheap flight about 300 bucks to get to Taipei because if I try to fly home, that was, that's why I'm not flying back to Canada. It didn't occur to me that in the summer, it would be incredibly, incredibly expensive. Like rather than a nice little $300 flight, it's like, yeah, instead, how about a way over a thousand for a nightmare flight? If you want a flight that's less of a nightmare, how about you spend thousands, just, just insane. But that all works out. I'll just hang around in Asia till the weather gets bad again. Perfect. So I'm heading to Taipei, but I hadn't booked anything yet through Airbnb. So I was literally just at the old KFC here in Seiguipo. I was just scrolling through stuff on my phone. And I found a place that I guess why I'm bringing this up is this is my first interaction at all with Taiwan. And I don't, you know, I don't really, of course, I don't know how things work. I never know how anything works. I don't really know the history of Taiwan and how it's connected to China. I know it's a real burr in China's fucking saddle that Taiwan is not just officially part of China. And I know that through weird means there's this V-Tuber iron mouse. I think I mentioned her the other day. I did a whole video called The Story of Iron Mouse. I got half a million views. Pretty good. Pretty good. But she had a designer who worked on some of her V-Tuber models. Who, if I understand right, like he refused to work with anybody who didn't recognize Taiwan as being part of China, which from what I can tell nobody thinks that except China. Nobody thinks Taiwan's part of China. China's trying to pretend that they are this eerie situation that like, you know, is it going to be one of these like someday the invasion occurs? I'm sure it's something I'll learn more about when I get there. But basically Taiwan is, 25:00 you know, China adjacent, culturally Chinese to some degree. And, you know, just sort of the basic stereotypes are that Japanese people are polite and around about way, you know, the read the air type of situation where they might not talk directly or tell you exactly what's going on or exactly what they think. You have to kind of infer from the situation. And I mean, I haven't dealt with that many Japanese people directly to say for sure. But I guess like even when I was just at the Canadian Embassy, it was Japanese people that worked there and it was, yeah, it was a little not the same kind of bureaucracy I was used to. It was a little tricky. So I'd say that stereotype has some hold some water. And I guess I'll mention I don't think stereotyping is the worst thing in the world, you know, like obviously if you, if you treat a stereotype in an unfair way, if you just paint someone with a stereotypical view of their culture and you don't pay attention to the individual, that's obviously a mistake. But on the other hand, stereotypes do occur because it's oftentimes true, you know, there's stereotypes about Canada that are goddamn true.

And weirdly, I can't really think of a stereotype about Korean people off the top of my head, but the stereotype about Chinese people is the opposite of Japan. It's not the let's talk in circles, let's try to tiptoe, let's try to be polite. The stereotype, again, maybe this is unfair, it's just the stereotype, is that if you're dealing with someone from China, it'll be a little more like dealing with someone from America. In the sense that it'll be direct, it will be forward, they'll tell you exactly what they think, and maybe even more so than in America, and maybe to the point that it seems rude, that's the stereotype I had heard. Whether it's fair or not, who can say? But I just think it's interesting that the first time, my first time dealing with not even actual people from China, just people from Taiwan, it totally seems that way. From an Airbnb listing, and I know this is just a tiny little example, and it's an extra weird to use booking an Airbnb as any kind of proof of anything, but it's so palpable, that you can just feel the difference right away, but not in a bad way at all. I really found it very refreshing, and almost charming, how super straight forward, and super direct this listing was. Where I was searching for cheap, I always started the cheap end, and then I move upward as I have to, just to avoid sleeping in a bunk bed. So this place was like $23 a day, a super good rate for a private room, nothing to complain about there, that's great. But the listing, it was just so refreshingly candid, so super direct. More than I have ever seen for an Airbnb listing ever that said, hey, listen, listen, here's the deal basically. The deal is, this is an old building. This building is 56 years old, there's places where the wall paper is coming off a bit, there is a toilet attached to the room, you've got to use a communal shower, but you do have your own toilet, however the toilet drips, you're going to hear the drip all night. So if you're not a good sleeper, beware, and just overall, just know that this is what this is. This is a low budget room in an old building, it's a little bit rough. Sometimes people book this room just because they're searching for cheap, and they don't seem to understand that this is not a hotel, you've got to be okay, that this is a rundown old building, and a room in a bed is like all you get. And if you're not okay with that, don't book. That's like, wow, there's so straightforward about this. And additionally, they were not only that, but let's make a pact. Also, don't book if you're not willing to take part in this pact. And the pact is, yeah, okay, look, this place is not five stars, but give us five stars, we'll give you five stars. And again, like the inference was like, you know, there's really, like I guess why I thought this was cool, and why I'm okay with this, is that I'm sure the place will be kind of rough and will be kind of lame. And if you really wanted to nitpick about it, probably not worth five stars, but I'm always thinking I wish I could find cheap places, and I don't want everything to be a fancy expensive hotel experience. That's basically what this is offering. So for what it is, why shouldn't it get five stars? You know, just the way Airbnb is, it's quite a black eye if you don't have perfect ratings. 30:00 It's like not getting five stars is a serious problem. But by the standards of fancy pants Airbnb is this place, it's not going to get five stars. So I just, this, this kind of blew my mind. This listing was like, hey, look, it's a little bit of a rough place. It's kind of run down. You don't get much, but you don't pay much. And look, give us five stars. We give you five stars. This will be sweet. It'll all work out. I was like, this is like, I'm sure it is going to be a little weird. I'm sure I'm going to run into things that I'm like, oh, I don't know about this or that. But it's like a listing after my own heart. So I mean, it was available for like 18 days or something. So I was just like, yeah, man, give it to me. Give it to me, baby. Give me all the time that you got. I would have taken more if they had more time, but 18 days is also good in the sense that that's a nice chunk to just get situated when I get to Taipei. But if it is all fucked up, that's not like the end of the world if I'm there for 18 days. I'll survive. So anyway, that's coming. That's coming in the future. Stay tuned to see how things go in Taipei.

Yeah, it was also a little weird because they do have, I guess there's air conditioning, but you have to pay extra if you want to use the air conditioning. And it's a hundred new Taipei dollars. So I was like, all right, how much is that? But Google initially got confused with Chinese currency and told me it was $18 Canadian. I was like, dude, the room is 23. How can it cost $18 a day to turn on the air conditioning? But it's actually about $4, which is no big deal. If anything, the bigger problem is just that I got to pay the $4 independently. I got to go pay them fucking. Here's $4. I'm going to turn on the thing. Hopefully I just won't need to.

But yeah, as a harbinger of Taiwan as a first contact goes, yeah, that is definitely the thought that crossed my mind is like, huh? This does kind of, I guess that's the thing too is like I didn't, it's not like I'm carrying these preconceived notions in my mind or thinking about them. I didn't cross my mind at all. It wasn't until I started looking at this listing and that's when I thought like, oh, you know, I have kind of heard this before. I have heard people say that there's a bluntness in China that is borders on rudeness. And that air being be listing, of course, again, it's not actually China, but it wasn't rude, not at all rude, but just so completely direct. And I just, yeah, I think it was, I just think it's neat. So many times you're kind of doing the Airbnb dance and something weird happens and then you go back and look closer at the listings or even the reviews. And you realize that some of these topics were brought up but in such a roundabout way. It's just nice to just be like, no, here it is. Here's exactly what you're getting. Here's exactly what to expect. Here's exactly what we want out of you and here's what we will give to you. Cool.

So, let's fade out and not to get you too excited with the wild adventures, but I might actually go to the dentist tomorrow. Holy, sweet Lord. So, stay tuned.

Alright, it's the next day. I'm on the way to the dentist. I'm literally walking there right now. I got off the 182 bus early. I'm walking to the scene of the dentist that I scoped out the other day when they were closed when I was in this neighborhood. And yeah, it's just one of these weird things of like at first when I realized I had a loose filling.

I was very stressed in Busan that I only had a little bit of time in Busan and I didn't manage to sort out any dentist stuff. But then it sort of flip-flopped when I got to Jeju. It's like, okay, initially I'll put it off because I was sick so it's like, yeah, I don't want to go to the dentist when I'm sick. And then I realized that while this loose filling is definitely a problem and it's not a smart idea to just let it sit, especially to let it sit through. Jeju and then Taiwan and then probably returning to Japan and then getting back to Canada. I mean, I think I could. It was a very bad idea. But I realized like, okay, this is not developing pain. I could put this off. And then it's just that dumb thing that is I think largely stereotypically a male thing. 35:00 But once again, I feel like this is a stereotype that holds somewhat true. It's that men, you know, it's the whole thing. Men don't like ask in directions. Men don't like doing this. Men don't like doing that. Men don't like going to the doctor. Men don't like, I mean, it's true. I hate it. I don't want to do this. It's uncomfortable. I'd rather just put it off forever. So I can make it part of the podcast. That's a weird wrinkle like like anybody cares, like anybody wants to listen to a podcast about me going to the dentist. But I appreciate that you're here with me because this this like makes it just makes it easier to just go do it. It's like, well, I have to do it. It's for the podcast. Whatever man, whatever gets me over that hump, all I got to do is go walk through the door.

It's just like giving a speech in school or something. Once I'm in there, it'll all be fine.

I'm not a particularly socially awkward guy. I can handle social situations. I can navigate waters, but I guess even bringing that up. That's a telling thing to even bring up, right? It's just like obviously I spend my time just wandering the earth more or less by myself. That's what I would rather do.

But anyway, yeah. Thanks for joining me. While I'm on my way though, I did want to mention. I said I think it was last episode that I was watching that YouTube channel Walters World. He's a travel travel guy that he said the second leading cause of death for travelers was getting struck by vehicles, which I'm just looking at all these cars go by. There's no surprise there. But he didn't say what the first one was, what the number one reason was. And then it's almost like he read my fucking mind, because I saw a little video by him pop up on YouTube. Top causes of death for travelers posted three hours ago. It's like, shit, Walters. You got me. You did it. So number one is hard attacks. That's all. Just a natural cause of death. So in a way, vehicles actually are number one. Vehicles are the number one non just natural death happening. So yeah, look both ways. Man, don't jaywalk.

Pay attention, which as I say that, I'm talking into a fucking microphone while I'm crossing the street. I've got the walk light, but some guys started turning and you know, he did stop. But I guess I shouldn't. Now we flip-flop. Now I shouldn't be talking should be paying attention. Now whatever, across the road, it's fine. Anyway, here's the building with the dentist. So yeah, now we'll do a little fade out. And when we fade back in, I'll have gone to the dentist. Fucking amazing. Revolutionary.

Wow. Well, to say that was unexpected is an understatement. Completely unexpected sad turn of events. So I got to the dentist office.

And it really seemed like they were closed, but I pulled out my little translator thing and translated the sign on the door. And it was the same as what they said on Google Maps. It's like, okay, no, they are open today. But then I saw that the lunch break is 12 30 to 130 and it was one o'clock. It still was like extremely shut down. I was thinking like, wow, they really take lunch serious. Like everyone is just, it's, it is as though they are closed.

But I was like, yeah, it's okay. I'll just go wander around. And I got back at about 145. And when I went in, there was one lady there. And she had to use her phone to write some stuff and have it translated into English. And the message was, the doctor, my father-in-law has died. So there's no treatment today. And then I assume, you know, the universal language of my eyes getting very wide. You know, what the heck?

So that is extremely sad. So I don't know what to say about that. Obviously, I never met this guy, but that is some bad news. Thank you very much.

So I thought I would push through and just head to the other dentists that's on the other side of town. And it was a pretty long walk, but as I got it, I don't know what that I'm doing now. I'll just start walking and see what happens. And there was construction that blocked off the sidewalk and it was this like really busy, megalane highway. So I couldn't really cross over. 40:00 So I was like, all right, well, there's bus stops. Let me check that out. But the little digital screen just said, no information on buses coming up. Maybe it's to do with the construction, I don't know. But that seemed like enough evidence to just hang back, recalibrate, make a new plan.

Go to the dentist another day. And then now I'm just walking through Jeju City to the bus terminal. I guess I'll continue on around the island a little bit. But of course, I can't help but think about death. I was mainly thinking about my dad who died during the COVID time, so pretty recently as of this recording. And I was just thinking about how, you know, the fact that he died, he died of cancer, but it was while COVID was still pretty heavily in full swing.

So there was no question even about having a funeral. We just weren't going to do it.

Apparently in places like Florida or whatever they shook off, COVID protocols pretty quickly, but not in Canada. In Canada, we took it pretty serious. But I was actually glad to not have had a funeral because I'm more than happy to just grieve privately, grieve with the family, grieve locally, grieve individually. I mean, I've only actually been to one funeral ever for my aunt, but I didn't like it, didn't enjoy it. I'd much rather keep that stuff to myself.

But it was kind of interesting, I don't know. It's nice that it just had a casual enough relationship with my dad to be able to talk about that while he was in the hospital and just be like, hey, you know, hey, here's a bonus. I don't have to go to an awkward funeral for you, old fella. And he was like, hey, yeah, that's fine with me. What do I care? I'm not going to be here.

But he was saying how if the tables were turned, you know, imagine if he didn't have a funeral if mom died. That side of the family would just be incensed. Like, are you kidding? You can't not do that or the neighborhood or all the people or whatever. Where I don't know. My dad had a lot of friends, but I don't know. It's just different, I guess, with maybe it's just another like, dude thing, a guy thing, you know. We all understood that we couldn't have a funeral because of COVID, but it was all right. It's like one of those things nobody wants to do it, but you kind of have to do it.

But in this case, we didn't have to do it. And yeah, I don't know. It was interesting. Just just to just to talk it out with him, him the actual person. It's like, all right. Well, no funeral. Let's have the, we'll have the funeral right now. We'll just have the funeral here. But of course, we didn't because that'd be unpleasant and weird. But I don't know. My dad was a pretty cool cat while he was in the hospital. Very accepting, I guess. Pretty freaking admirable.

The day is overcast. Very gray day. A good day for walking. The temperature is not too bad, but a bad day for thinking about dead people. Because it's like in the Robin Hood cartoon, the Disney cartoon.

Avalot town. As it's ups and downs. Sometimes ups outnumber the downs. But not in, not in hand. Just the gray skies. It's been raining a little intermittently on and off today. It's like I'm in that scene.

Anyway, not to make it about me. Well, I don't know. I mean, that's a weird thing too. It's going to say, hey, not to make it about me and my family. It's this other poor family who, uh, who someone died in. But I, whatever, dude, I can make it about me and my family. They're the people that I know. Who else am I going to make it about?

Whatever. Let's just, uh, let's just move on. Well, we can still talk about death though. Speaking of, uh, that video I mentioned, the Walters World video about how, uh, people get hit by cars while traveling. 45:00 One of the things, uh, in the comments, apparently there's been a heat wave hitting recently. So as hot as it's been here on Jeju, I've actually been a little lucky. Because it hasn't gone beyond the high 20 degrees Celsius here, which is pretty dang hot. And with the humidity and stuff, it's not nice. But in other places, it's gotten to like 40 degrees Celsius, which is absolutely crazy. And apparently there have been numerous heat related deaths reported. With all, uh, common attributes where it's travelers who are over 60 who go out walking in the incredible heat without telling anyone where they're going or where they're going to be and not bringing enough water. So, uh, yeah, I don't know. That's just a general thing to keep in mind too. If it's 40 degrees, just don't go outside first off. I don't know. I guess it's hard though. If you're on vacation and you're visiting somewhere, you feel like you got to go soak it in.

But yeah, I'd say like I'm on the bubble of acceptable temperature. Once you get up above like 30 degrees, it gets increasingly insane, very, very fast.

And yeah, bring lots of water. Don't go out too far away because these were obviously two just hikes where they were away from people.

There was no bailing out. It's easy though to give that advice afterward. I mean, you just head out at the onset of a journey and you just expect it'll be alright. You know, you don't expect this to be a problem and then once it's a problem, it's too late and you are dead.

Oh, it appears I've made it to the bus station because here's a depot full of buses. Must be around the back. But yeah, that's another thing that's very nice about this circumnavigating Jeju plan is that even in the parts where it's a little more rural and I'm a bit away from the main street, it's still never more than like, I don't know, I can't imagine I've ever been more than 20 minutes away from the main street with the buses and maybe less than that. And you know, I go through these stretches where I can't find a convenience store, but again, only because I'm not at the main street. If it was time to pull the rip cord, it would never be hard to do. And just in general, there's just people around all the time and buses and convenience stores. If I did happen to go out on a day that became some kind of solar vortex destroying everything, it's pretty easy to escape out of it. Alright, around the side of this bus station, there's one of these machines where you can spend 50 cents on a coffee.

These aren't mega common on Jeju.

They're cool. It's very dusty on the outside, but it seems to work. It took my dollar.

Oh, just giving me back change in 10 cents instead of 50.